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The Family Downward Spiral In Anne Taylor's 'Teenage Wasteland'

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The Family Downward Spiral
Throughout life different families go through many different obstacles. Anne Taylor’s “Teenage Wasteland” revealed that no matter how much time and effort Daisy invests in setting strict rules and cracking down on what her wayward son Donny should and shouldn’t be doing, it is not enough. Donny makes poor life decisions regardless. Even though Daisy loves her son and wants the best for him she lacks giving Donny positive attention regarding his well-being and focuses more on criticizing everything he is doing wrong. As for Donny’s father he seems to be absent majority of the time and doesn’t show much attention towards his children.
Early on in the short story Daisy gets called in to sit and talk to the principle from Donnie’s private school informing her that her son is “noisy, lazy , and disruptive; always fooling around with his friends and he wouldn’t respond in class”. (188). Daisy doesn’t understand what they’ve done wrong because they have done whatever they could think of. According to Daisy “we don’t let him watch TV on school nights. We don’t let him talk on the phone till he’s finished with his homework.” (189). However the problem that seems to be at stake is that Donny acts out at school because he wants the attention from teachers and classmates that he lacks or does not receive at home. Daisy had remembered Donny acting like this when he was …show more content…

This goes to show that communication between family members is important. Anne Taylor’s “Teenage Wasteland” displayed a topical issue some parents have actually faced in their lifetime. No matter how much time and effort Daisy invested into her son, she went about it in all the wrong ways. Donny was clearly unhappy and chose to leave the place that made him feel the way that he

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